


Hooked on a Feeling

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Collars, Dehumanization, Dissociation, Drugging, Gen, Hooks, Humiliation, Hurt No Comfort, Leashes, Nick Stokes Whump, Non-Consensual Touching, Torture, Whump, Whump with No Plot, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: In the process of one final, last ditch effort to break free, it doesn’t just break through a bone, doesn’t just break through skin, doesn’t just break the taut rope in a feat of strength that is unparalleled and will never happen again…It breaks its entire identity.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Hooked on a Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> I had a pretty messed up dream the other night.
> 
> One element was actually inspired by a fic written by the fabulous commanderbunnbunn about a broken collarbone (highly rec you go check their work out!) 
> 
> also just so happens to fit for the following whumptober 2020 prompts: let's hang out sometime, in the hands of the enemy, and psych 101
> 
> please make sure you read the tags on this one.

There’s a bitter taste in his mouth that unfortunately, he’s all too familiar with. So familiar, he can identify the chemical composition and hazards and list off all the information on the SDS sheet. He vaguely wonders if someday, he’ll develop an immunity to the ether that scorches the back of his throat. 

It’s a higher dose than last time. He feels a nausea stronger than ever before, feels his stomach trying to expel  _ something,  _ but it’s all dry heaves that strain his temples and gross retching sounds that croak out of his mouth with nothing but saliva oozing out through the corner of his mouth.

He’s also familiar with many positions in bed, but he’s not familiar with this one. Hands tied to his ankles behind his back, he can feel his wrists rest on the crack between his buttcheeks. He rocks back and forth on his belly as his mouth gets acquainted with the fibers of the dilapidated mattress that smells like urine and alcohol. He groans in disgust and in frustration as he can’t seem to release himself from being hogtied. 

A wave of panic elates his heart rate as humiliation anchors the fluttering feeling when he hears ominous words, “Lookie here, it’s awake.”

He’ll have time later to ruminate on how he should have known that being referred to as an  _ “it” _ was a telling sign that he has no control in this situation.

“Wha’...is thissss? Thissa...joke?” he slurs, his lips feel numb, his tongue swelling to the roof of his mouth.

“Listen to it whine. It’ll be squealing soon.”

“Should we give it a chance?”

“You’re just bored, aren’t you?”

Three different voices, he quickly distinguishes.

Three deep breaths, he takes, to flatten the bubbling nausea in his stomach.

“Perhaps. Let me have my fun.”

Without warning, his legs snap forward at the knee like the spring on a mouse trap. His arms feel weightless as they slide over his ass and onto the mattress, palm upwards. Trembling hands work to push up, allowing a quick squeeze of his eyes to recalibrate himself before he twists his neck to look at the sea of black swirling shadows looming behind him. He blinks rapidly, but the features are not just blurred, they’re  _ melted. _

“Go on... _ Run.” _

He gets to his feet, but can’t get balance on the buoyant mattress. Teetering and holding his hands out in front of him, his fingers coil into fists ready to land a blow onto his captors, but his legs buckle and he trips over the edge of the mattress, crashing down to the floor. 

He hears whooping hollers of laughter at his expense, clapping that only serves to drive him harder to get back to his feet and he doesn’t even care where the shadow figures are, he holds his hands blindly in front of him as he charges towards the opposite end of the room, running head first in what is, YES! The door--which he twists open with clammy hands but just as the wood separates from the frame, a giant hand slams against it, keeping it closed. He sends an elbow backwards that lands into a solid yet malleable surface--a chest that slams him into the wall, his hand uncomfortably sandwiched between his stomach and the knob. 

He still tries to twist the knob open, charging up the energy to retaliate in a push back, but suddenly the force against his backside disappears and he overshoots, falling--no, he’s  _ dragged  _ backwards and sent to the floor with a rough throwing grab of his shirt collar. 

“Heh, this one is putting up quite a fight.”

“Not as much of one as the black one did.”

“Don’t forget that we gave it a chance…”

He knows that last line was meant for his ears.

Nick’s scrambles to his feet, reaching for the door knob but his legs are pulled from beneath him--not necessarily the bone and flesh, rather, the fabric of his pants that are pulled off roughly, no care taken to unlatch the belt that serves as his only act of protest while his hands are busy gripping onto the knob. He won’t care if he’s literally caught with his pants down, if it means that he escapes this nightmare.

His feet kicking only speeds up the process as the clothing is sheathed away, socks and shoes peeled and flung against the wall in a ricocheted sound that rattles his ear drums. He continues to kick his feet in desperate fashion, an ascending yell calling to his innermost self telling him to get his shit together or else he won’t make it out of here alive, dignity be damned. 

Sharp fingernails dig into his ankles and he’s easily torn away from the door, the fall of the raised half of his body limits him in a state of recovery that serves as ample opportunity for his captors to continue their ravaging--or rather, preparation as one so aptly states--of his body.

The elastic of his underwear is sliced with a knife, the blade just barely scraping down the crack of his ass and enacting a puckering reflex that dredges up memories he had kept under a lock that’s been blown off its hinges. 

“NO!” he blurts out in a cracking voice that makes him feel infinitely younger than ever. 

Prying fingers tear away the tattered fabric, a breeze passes over the most sensitive part of his body as he’s turned over with a kick of a steel toed boot that shoves itself into his mouth.

“Look at it! It’s so small!” and a chorus of laughing ensues. Nick covers himself with his hands, knits his knees together but knows the image will never be lost. He coughs out the dirt and blood trapped in his teeth from the boot kick, puffing air as he uses an elbow to prop himself up.

“Not as small as that dumbass brain of yours, if you think I’m gonna take one more goddamn second of this--!” he huffs, a prideful uplift in the corners of his lips as the drug’s effects further fade out of his system.

“Quite a tongue it has. Might need to yank it…”

The largest shadow reaches down, uses two leather-clad hands to pull Nick’s jaw apart to stuff his fingers down into his throat. Nick claws at the arm reaching inside of him, suffocating him, while the other hand wraps around his neck. Without warning, he’s lifted up into the air before being flung backwards onto the mattress, his head pinballs against the wall and onto his chest. 

He rasps for breath, choking on the taste of leather, and any words he would use to bargain are locked in an inaccessible recess in the back of his throat.

“Tie it up,” the large man commands.

Nick looks up and while his vision is still filtered with a perpetual motion blur--it’s in this moment he happens to wonder if he had even put his contacts in today--he watches as the two other men in the room approach him, carrying some sort of metal frame like a vigil. The frame is simple, just three iron bars welded together, though Nick questions its purpose until it becomes an empty backboard for the mattress he’s been tossed onto. One of the acolytes walks over to a table just out of his field of vision and returns with a drill while the other man--as thin as a twig, Nick notes and begins a hypothetical plan of attack--holds Nick down with squeezing hands on his shoulders, keeping him pinned against the wall.

“Please, please, you gotta help me…” Nick tries to appeal in a low voice to the twig-man, as his associate begins to drill the frame into the floor. The man’s face tilts, and he releases one hand from Nick--he twitches a hopeful smile, wide watering eyes shining with victory--

Until the hand reaches into a pocket and brings out a rag, which is stuffed into his mouth before he can put up a fight. He spits the rag out as soon as it enters, but the hazy distortion returns and the previous attempt at physical retaliation becomes an inner struggle for consciousness. 

The other end of the metal frame is drilled in, and he wraps his fingers around both ends in an attempt to sit up from his slumping, intent on knocking out the smaller man first before attempting an attack on the other--who is seemingly just as fragile.

He’s about to lunge forward when a swift chop to his neck with the side of one of the twig’s hands momentarily stops the air flow in his throat. His Adam’s apple takes the brunt of the blow but the entire inner lining of his neck bubbles with tingling soreness as he coughs out the air that was trapped in his lungs. 

He’s about to put a hand to massage and protect himself, but it’s whipped out of the way with a piece of leather that slaps around his neck like the bracelets his sisters used to wear. 

He gasps, immediately digging his fingers around the collar around his neck, trying to find the latch to release himself. It must be in the back of his neck, and he’s too distracted by the blurring twigs who approach with malicious intent to concentrate on release, with sweating fingers unable to grip onto the metal mechanism without slipping.

“Careful now, doggie, be still or you’re gonna get tangled…” one of the men taunts as a clip is attached to the loop under his chin. 

And then another one, his fingers trace the path as it’s suspended to his right, he tries to pull it back but another hand grabs his wrist and wraps the end of the leash around it, which was already wrapped around a metal bar. An effective handcuff with no key, just a knot that he can’t undo without the use of his other hand, which is promptly attached to his left.

His arms spread, he can’t fight the other two leashes that are attached and then tied to the ankles of his eagle-spread legs. He tries to retract, loosen the tension on his bonds but his knees won’t bend up, instead feeling an uncomfortable strain as his feet resign themselves to numbness.

The two twigs step back to examine their work, watching as Nick jerks his arms and twists his torso with a screwed face upset with concentration, but from waist down he’s motionless.

And  _ fully  _ exposed. 

He blinks away furiously burning tears as they start to mock him with yipping barks and wailing howls that drown out his shouts and screams for them to  _ stop this!  _

“Just let me go! I won’t tell anyone--” he pleads.

“Now, now, we didn’t tell it to speak…” The leader booms in approach, armed with a spray bottle. 

Every droplet of spray  _ burns  _ his skin, he can feel cells burst and itching blotches splatter all over his face. He luckily, had closed his eyes in anticipation but that doesn’t stop the chemical from mixing with his tears as he spits out every molecule of saliva in his mouth. His nostrils flare but he sniffs up the contaminated droplets with only minute amounts of fresh air. The cave passing his lips sizzles, the cold air he sucks in does nothing else but disturb the sudden desert landscape in his mouth seething air between his teeth.

There’s a fire inside of him that burns just as intensely daring to roar out of his body, to break the ties that bind him, to stand tall and remind them that he is Nick Goddamn Stokes and he will  _ not  _ be treated like an animal. An object. Anything but human.

The fire is extinguished with another spray. 

And another.

And  _ another,  _ that diminishes the light within him and he succumbs to the darkness that chokes out a final breath of defiance, and he slinks into an almost drunken sort of dissociating stupor.

And there he sits, and the shadows start to drift away, scatter around the room though one remains, keeping an obvious watch on him. Spray bottle in one hand, cloth in the other. 

He takes the break as a chance to finally study the surroundings around him, determine where he might be, and he’s shocked to find that he is in a place he could almost call a sort of...home.

It’s Grissom’s office.

But...it’s not. 

But  _ it is _ .

It has the same upward slant. The same matted, glowing windows. The same irregular shape of the corner room in the crime lab. The same checkered tiles on the floor, though it’s marred with scratches and scuffs and blood. All the books, creatures, experiments and all things familiar, stripped away to show the bare bones skeleton of  _ Grissom’s office. _

He now realizes what’s going on as he watches the men grab a board and place it on the desk-- _ Grissom’s desk _ \--in the center of the room. He’s going to be pinned just like the butterflies that usually line the walls. Encased, as he watches them unwrap a glass top for the human sized shadow box. Maybe he’s going to be a “present” for his boss.

Or a warning.

“Pl-please…N-no, don’t...” he whimpers, he can already see his reflection in front of him, trapped in a solitude where the only company is himself. Can already hear the echoes of mocking, callous words,  _ “anyway you like, you’re going to die here.” _

“It isn’t allowed to speak,” one of the men gruffs. “Shut it up. Make it sleep again.”

His breathing quickens again, his body spasms but the leashes jerk him back into place as one of the skinny men approach with the soiled rag that was once white--a few splotches still are, but the rest is yellow and brown.

“I-I’ll be quiet--” Nick begs, but his words are cut off as the rag is stuffed in his throat despite the rapid shaking of his head. He feels the leashes catch his slumping body from full collapse and curtains fall over his eyes, leaving him in a shroud of darkness. The sounds around and inside of him go from muffled to null in mere seconds.

He doesn’t know what terrifies him more, the undetermined amount of time lost to unconsciousness, or waking up to the juggling of his balls by a bored shadow that laughs with each slap of his flaccid flesh against the inner walls of his thigh. 

A waking slap that he would have to admit, would not have been as effective if it was delivered to his cheeks.

“FUCK OFF!” Nick roars as he’s brought back to life with an urge to rip off every separable body part of the man in front of him. “I-WILL-FUCKING-TEAR-YOU-APAARGHHHHHHHHHH!” 

His intimidation doesn’t work, as a sensitive shaft is gripped tightly but not as tight as the pull on the leashes that still suspend his body. He dares a laugh at the tail end of his screams when he’s able to move just enough to truly strike fear into the heart of his captor, the leashes finally loosening enough for him to move  _ just a little more. _

“The puppet is trying to get out of its strings…” one of the other men chuckles, relishing the display.

“Needs a better tether,” scaredy-pants spits out.

“Grab the hook,” the leader commands.

“WHAT DO YA WANT WITH ME?” Nick yells, the drugs wearing off quicker this time around, with the adrenaline flooding his blood stream.  _ They want a fucking animal, they’ll get one! _

“Quickly!” the leader’s voice has the slightest hint of a falter, and despite the slight win on his behalf, Nick’s body betrays him. He sways in dizzy exhaustion, his vision gaining focus and losing it just as quickly, he watches a thin shadow approach him with an enlarged fishing hook for a hand. 

The thin shadow pulls down the collar of his shirt, Nick’s head is pushed back against the wall with a hand pressed against his forehead, fingers poke into his eyes and he shuts them, but he’s almost grateful for that--grateful that he doesn’t have to watch as the sharp tip of the hook punctures the skin and now is not the time for him to think of such things, but he suddenly remembers how he used to hook worms onto fishing hooks, toss them into the water as bait.

He remembers how his small, pudgy fingers squeezed the writhing, wet yet sandy texture of the life that he was sacrificing for the sake of catching a bigger one. He remembers how the worm would wrap around his fingers and when he did this for the first time, the child cried, just as he’s crying now as he fully understands what’s being done to an innocent, breathing,  _ living  _ creature. 

The hook slides out the other end through a tunnel of his skin, skimming over his collar bone.

His screams subside as blood pours down beneath his shirt, glueing the soaked fabric to his skin. He doesn’t dare to move, knowing that the white-hot pain would blow itself off the color scale entirely with even just a twitch. He just focuses on breathing, on detaching himself, finding the safest recess in his mind. A song, a dream, validating words spoken to him that he’s relied on in the past to keep him going.

Voices that are no longer with him.

Even with three other people in the room, he’s never felt so isolated. 

Though calling them “people” is being generous.

The lead captor stands and observes his victim for a few endless minutes before he speaks again.

“It’s not deep enough. Do it again.” 

Nick shakes his head, earning him a rough blow to his head as it’s pushed down sideways, his neck so strained he thinks it’s going to sever entirely.

That would be less painful than what happens next.

The hook slides out faster than it was pushed in, the only mercy before he whimpers when it's re-oriented in the opposite direction and inserted once again into his body...this time going  _ under  _ his clavicle, resting on top of a rib bone. 

Now he  _ really  _ can’t move.

But that’s okay. 

He’s had plenty of practice with that.

And besides.

_ It  _ doesn’t move. 

_ It. Can’t. Move. _

That doesn’t stop it from trying.

In the process of one final, last ditch effort to break free, it doesn’t just break through a bone, doesn’t just break through skin, doesn’t just break the taut rope in a feat of strength that is unparalleled and will never happen again…

It breaks its entire identity.

Loses its name.

Loses its sense of  _ being.  _

It’s nothing but a worm wrapping itself around the pudgy fingers of an unforgiving god. 

Broken sobs and screams don’t escape its lips. 

The sounds are just as wasteful as its wasteful existence.

“Well now, that was stupid!” the commander  _ howls  _ in amusement. “Get it on the table. It’s time.”

The leashes whip into its body as they’re fully severed and retracted. 

The puppet released from its strings. 

Its arms are grabbed by the twigs, whatever is beating in its chest sinks down in slow descent as it is carried with ease. Its body has gone completely limp and it’s ashamed that in any other circumstance...it wouldn’t be this easy to handle it in such a crude manner.

It’s tossed carelessly onto the table, no sympathy for the broken bone that pokes out of his fractured skin. 

It’s not pinned down as it previously predicted. Its arms are crossed, one hand resting on its crotch, the other laid across its chest.

The eyes wander to the taunting glass on the floor before they roll up as the glass is lifted and moved on top of him, sealing him in. 

Another glass coffin it’s laid to rest in.

This time, with no opportunity for extra air.

Doesn’t need it anyway.

It stares at the reflection in front of its eyes. The face is a camera lens attached to a distressed and bleeding body. 

“G-Grissom’s...office…” it hisses in an exhale that releases the last remaining beat of hope in it’s chest, as it resigns itself to an uncomfortably strained dormancy. It wonders if the grainy, pixelated footage will be sent to the lab--the lab he’s already in. It wonders if it’ll be watched by its loved ones--do they even love it anymore? It wonders if the footage is just another trophy and will be kept private like all of the tapes of it sleeping, muttering names of redheads that it could only ever have in its dreams.

It has to laugh at that thought--none of its life is private. Not anymore.

It watches as the camera lens multiplies, splotches its field of view in black and white flashes as blood spurts out of its chest. It hears echoes of dissection. It hears tapping on the glass. It hears laughter and screams alike. It sees everything in the eyes of a fly, it’s been essentially reduced to such a pest.

The cameras blip away with more flashes to reveal a mirror above it, showing its broken, soiled body transformed into an attraction for all to witness.

And then, it hears a crack.

And another. 

Branching cracks.

The glass ceiling shattered, the truth revealed. It is, in fact, Grissom’s office, and the man himself is spotted high above his body, looking down on him like the tiny ant it is. 

Echoes of a mad man fill his ears, rambling about how easy it would be to pinch two fingers together and snuff its life out just...like…

_ That. _

Its bones quake with the terror of being exposed to much worse than just three perverted, crooked strangers, no--this is a violation of a well guarded intimacy that it knows isn’t the man’s fault, but both parties in the matter feel the weight of it nonetheless. 

It wants to say it’s sorry for letting the one man he’s always looked up to, down. So far down it may as well be in the core of the earth, flaying alive.

But it’s not alive.

And even if it was, it would still be less painful than the shredding of its heart beneath the crushing weight of the glass hovering inches above its face.

“Next up is the one that used to be called Sanders. Get it ready.”

Its eyes bulge out of their sockets as it wills itself to movement--a mistake, though the movement is limited to simple rapping of knuckles on the glass, a muted pounding as panic reaches an exploding crescendo in its body.

It’s carried off of the table and sat up against a wall. 

Set between two other shadowboxes, with all too familiar faces that make it black out in a flight reflex that sends it into a mercifully painless everlasting sleep.

But it’s not a  _ forever- _ lasting sleep.

It’s blinded by an unforgiving light in the ceiling. The eyes retreat beneath the safety of lids but instead of darkness it’s shown the illuminated branches in a sea of red. It’s head lulls down, the chin touching the chest before bouncing backwards. 

It suppresses the sound of pain, fearing the commanding reminder that comes with the attempt to fight back against the tight blanket tucked beneath his body. The lips roll inwards, teeth biting as it tentatively lifts one of the eyes open to discover what new hell it has been delivered to.

To its complete shock, two familiar faces stand as pillars on either side of the bed it's been laid upon.

The same faces that were there, on both sides of its coffin. 

Its pallbearers.

Sara Sidle and Warrick Brown.

“Grissom’s office, huh?” Sara’s lips curl into her trademark smirk, though her eyes are clouded with sadness as she runs a trembling hand through Nick’s hair. Warrick’s hands are balled up on the bar of the other side of the bed, staring with such guilt at the bandaged wound as if he had done it himself. His eyes seem to sink into the bruised flesh that swells around his irises.

Perhaps the non-reality it had just faced had some truth in it after all.

It doesn’t want to speak, but it has to. 

It has to tell them,  _ it’s okay. _

It will be okay.

“It’s wuh-where it--” 

The words catch themselves in its throat. It remembers the truth.

It is not an  _ it. _

“It’s...where I always felt safe.”


End file.
